State News

Feb 22, 2019

8:39AM

In Maharashtra, the sate Election Commission has said that it will provide pick-up and drop facility to disabled voters in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Official said, the move is aimed at facilitating persons with disability (PwD).

The state has total of 2,24,162 voters registered as PwD across 48 Lok Sabha constituencies. Additional Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra, Dilip Shinde, said, ideally, a political party should not bring voters to the polling centres. It is for the first time the election commission will pick up the voters from their houses and drop them again after they cast their vote.

The commission has developed a mobile application named as PWD, which will be activated in a couple of days, using which the voters who have enrolled themselves as persons with disabilities (PwD) can inform the ECI in availing the pick-up and drop service. This voluntary service will be completely free-of-cost. The app will soon be available on Playstore.

The official said the commission has already roped in several NGOs working for the physically-challenged persons as well as several auto and taxi service providers for the service.

The official informed that the election commission will be organising state-wide booth level camps on February 23 and 24 to educate voters about VVPAT machines, new voter IDs and other initiatives taken by it, where the voters can even see the list to check their names.